“What the …”

I had read an Austin blog awhile back about some modifications to Shoal Creek. I have not driven down Shoal Creek in quite awhile. Today I decided to miss some traffic and headed south on Shoal Creek from Steck. What the … are those semi-circle curb concoctions every couple of hundred yards on either side of the street. They are filled with a single tree, some tiny plants, and rocks. I predict that all plants and perhaps the trees will not survive. So what were they thinking? Are these there for safety reasons? I seriously doubt it because they now force cyclists out into traffic. Are they for esthetics? They do not look good to me. In fact, they look really out of place. IMHO they look like a total waste of good tax payer money. Probably the next time I travel down Shoal Creek they will be gone. Sheesh!

My second what the … has to do with our state representatives. What are they doing protesting gambling bills today at lunch? I concur that promoting casinos as a means to bail out the educational system is a little loony. First of all no single source of state money should be ear-marked for a single purpose. Casino’s offer much more value in that they could stop the Texas money running away to Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Mississippi, and Las Vegas. They could employee thousands of people. They could offer entertainment and a more pleasant atmosphere along the Texas coast. Representatives need to face the facts that Texans like to gamble. I could easily find a poker game hear in Austin seven nights per week. I do not really care for one arm bandits, so putting those at race tracks does nothing for me. I do believe in playing games that require some skill and that at least I have a chance of controlling the outcome.

OK! Here is my platform when I run for office. World Class poker rooms will be built in Galveston, Corpus Christi, Austin, Dallas, and Houston. A portion of the revenue generated would go into the general fund. A portion of the revenue would be set aside for charity. I would create the TPT, Texas Poker Tour. Each poker room would host a championship style tournament annually. Winners would qualify for the Capitol Classic in Austin Texas. Our wonderful representatives claim that gambling impacts the poor. I agree in that many people are looking for that single pull on the slot machine or the 6 numbers to appear in the Lotto. Everyone wants to get rich quick. Poker on the other hand requires a bank roll, skill and patience.

Texas is likely to get poker rooms about as likely as I am going to run for office!

What the … was I doing playing for flushes in 5-card draw. The other night I lost 3 or 4 times when I was dealt four suited cards. The pot sizes were decent, but it required me calling $1.5 - $2.50 to draw my single card. I did not hit a single one, so I went through a $15 bank roll quickly. One of you math gurus needs to educate me on the odds with 5 players playing 5 card draw of filling the flush. I had my share of bad beats, but reckless pay has dwindled my bankroll on 24HPoker. I am going to stick with holdem until I can build my bankroll back.

I am invited to a $40 buy-in tournament Friday night, but my wife has to work and I have to prepare for the neighborhood garage sale. Oh Boy! Perhaps I can take a cut of the proceeds to add to my poker bank roll. NOT! If I can get everything organized I may at least show up and drink a beer. I might deal, but most importantly I might be able to get in a ring game or a losers tournament. The tournament looks like it will have 16 – 24 players, which is nice. Oh well maybe next time!

We have a busy weekend with 3 soccer games, piano recital, and a garage sale.

What the …!

Play on, play SMART!

“Table Persona”

I was reading an article on one of the blogs. The main point was that you should use different user names at the various sites so people do not pick up on your habits. This makes sense; however, I have the same name at numerous sites. My objective all along was to learn to play against different players and environments, so I am constantly learning how to mix it up. I think if you are a regular at casinos people no that you are. They believe they have a fix on your style of play. The profitable players know how to mix it up. That is my goal!

That being said I have just signed up at Noble Poker. I wanted to play in the blogger Omaha H/L tournament. For the first time I changed my user name. I did not change it to hide my style of play. I changed because my daughter is a Harry Potter freak and wanted me to use a name that related to Harry Potter. I came up with three choices:

Harry Putter or Hairy Putter – since I am an avid golfer who only plays now 4 times per year.

Gringotts – The bank of wizard world.

Daily Profit – The wizard newspaper

I settled on the Daily Profit, which seemed most fitting! A daily profit is any poker player’s goal.

It is about 13 minutes until the blogger tournament starts. I am hopping to meet/chat with April (NotAPokerBlogger), Scurvydog (Sound of a Suck Out) who organized the tournament, and Slayre (Slayre’s Poker Quest). I am sure I will meet other bloggers.

Hopefully I will make some noise! Thanks scurvy for setting the tournament up! I am still on tilt after losing $15 playing 5-card draw this afternoon. I was dealt a set of 4’s and drew 2 cards. I got two aces. My opponent drew 3 cards. He raised $5 and I went over the top for another $5. Of course he had Tens full of threes. Argh! It was just a great hand.

I was also playing Omaha H/L and hit a straight flush. Oh yeah I think I know now the true sound of a “suck out”. I had pocket aces. Board comes xxQ, turn is a K and the river is another K. Of course I lose to 3 kings after capping the pot the entire way. Oh well! I would play the hand exactly the same way every time.

Holy Crap! Just played in a NL SNG (Sit and Go) with 6 players. I was the freakin chip lead and went all-in with AK suited. Flop brought a King, then the Turn brought a King, I typed in nice game, the river game him a straight. We are now even in chips. I get an A7o. He bets, I raise. He calls. Flop brings and A48. I go all-in. He had A4. So Sad! This is only the third SNG and finishing second is not so bad!!

I am still hanging in the blogger tournament. My PC completely froze up once. They should blow off the break, which came after the first hour. I have not had a hand since the first 15 minutes. Also at one point there were 7 players sitting out at our table. Hard to make a large sum of money. I finished 51st going all-in with AA26. Bummer!

I just finished in 58th place in a free roll with 189 players. I lost to pockets deuces on the freakin river. Oh there is no justice. Oh well it cost a ton to enter! :o) It is almost 2:00 AM. I am watching Man on Fire. It is an interesting movie and of course I can not go to sleep until it’s over.

Ok I need to publish this thing, but a few more comments about Noble Poker. When you sign up for their site, they greet you immediately and offer you a bonus. I thought that was a good touch. Personally I did not think the site is easy to navigate and the User Interface is somewhat clunky. I am not certain that I would put money into this site or not. I probably will play another tournament and check it out.

In conclusion your online table persona does not make much different. Play the cards correctly and adjust your game when the need arises.

Play on!

"WOW"

This will be a short post! First of all I am pissed in that I had already written a post on the kids PC. Freakin explorer error and I lost everything. I know better!

I should be in bed, but I have to post this. I started the evening with so many bad beats. Fortunately for me I have forgotten them all. I had some wine, tequila, and a beer. Foolish for someone who still has a cough. Any rate I had to tell the world that the impossible happened this evening. Granted I did not make a huge some of money, because almost anytime I bet everyone would fold. Here it is! Hold on to your seats. With a 30 minute span I hit 2 (count 'em) two straight flushes playing 5 card draw. If that is not exciting what is!!!

For the night I won about $40 on 24HPoker and $10 on Check N Raise. I was just in a $5 NL Holdem tournament. I went all-in with pocket jacks and an ace on the board. I lost! That is OK cuz I should be in bed and they were VIP points to get in. We are heading to Houston in the morning.

Man I wish I people had gotten great hands when I hit the two straight flushes. Shit I should have recorded those hadn histories. Perhaps I should request them.

Man I am pumped! I may never go to sleep! Hee Hee!

Reporting two straight flushed is a hell of a lot better than reporting bad beats.

Play on!

"Patience"

Lets see what Webster's has to say.

1 : bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint
2 : steadfast despite opposition, difficulty, or adversity

The main reason I selected patience as the word of the day is somehow a database schema got dropped at work. It is a little frustrating because now I have to re-import the data. I was hoping for a smooth morning and this is trying my patience.

After looking up "patience" in the dictionary I find it very interesting how applicable the word is to poker. "Bearing pains" happens often at the poker table when you pocket kings gets whomped by a small straight at the river and it really does little good to "complain".

"Steadfast despite opposition" is also very accurate for poker, especially in a tournament situation and poker provides a ton of adversity.

Speaking of patience, I was very patient last Friday night in a $5 NL Holdem tournament at Check N Raise. I do not remember to many specifics except as usual to place in the money it took two all-in river snags to remain alive. I had managed to make my way to the cheap lead with only 4 players left out of 32. Other than the two lucky river snags I played well and very patient. Hey I even dropped pocket Kings. I think for the first time ever! The board had an ace and a potential flush. It turned out to be a very wise lay down. I do remember putting one of the players all-in when I had pocket jacks. To my chagrin he had pocket queens. There goes a huge portion of my stack. The very next hand I caugh KQo. I am in the money, so I decided to push all-in. The guy who had the pocket ladies called me. Crap this time he had the pocket Jacks and of course they hold up, knocking me out 4th. Not bad winning $28, since it cost me nothing to get in.

Saturday night I was playing at 24HPoker. Of course I was playing a 5 card draw table and a holdem table for a $25 investment. I was in the BB on the 5 card draw table with two pair 4s and 7s. Everyone limped so I drew one card. Wow it is a 4. I bet the Pot, which was about $5. Another player who drew one card goes over the top for another $9. Shit! Could he have filled a boat also. Nah the odds are against it! I call! Well his boat nines over threes placed a whooping on me. I managed to lose both bankrolls at the two tables. Enough to bring tears to your eyes. Since then I have managed to win back about $15 of it. I have enough VIP points to get $10, but it looks like the SOBs are going to make me earn the entire 400 VIP points before I see any of the bonus. I thought I would get $10 each time I hit 100 VIP points. Most likely I did not read the small print.

Well our daughter woke me up at 12:30 AM with a painful ear ache. We gave her ibuprofen and she slept for a little while. I gave her another dose just before I left for the office. I am sure my day is going to be messed up despite the amount of work I need to do. So the key here is "patience".

Obviously I would like to publish every day, but that definitely does not seem to be a reality. At least I seem to find time once a week!

A big thanks to April at http://www.thisisnotapokerblog.com for adding me to her web site. It is nice to read other Austin blogs.

Well hopefully we will be heading to Houston this weekend to celebrate my Mom's 29th birthday. I am a little worried about our daughter, but an ear ache should not prevent this quick trip to the big city.

I do believe that "Patience is a virtue!" I am working on it!

Play on

“A whole lot of Nothin”

I have not posted in a little while due to this crazy cough. I did not sleep for two entire nights and finally called the Doctor. He prescribed some cough medicine with codeine and I was finally able to get some sleep. I am still not back to my normal self. My guess is that is will take several more weeks. I do know that I need to quit taking the cough medicine, because now it is keeping me awake rather than making me sleepy.

I have managed to play a little poker here and there but not a whole lot of excitement. I really enjoy playing 5-card draw at 24HPoker. While I am playing draw I usually also play a limit holdem game. Most of the time I break even or come out a little bit ahead. I did have three specific hands to mention.

In 5-card draw I was in the small blind so it was only $.25 to call and draw cards. I had four spades so it was worth the effort. I got my fifth spade. I was excited and made a modest raise. The BB who had also only taken one card went over the top of me to match the pot, $9.25. Hmmmm! I made the mistake of calling. Sure enough he had a boat.

In 5-card I was dealt a pat flush. I raised the pot $2.25. I got one caller. The caller took one card. I raised the pot again. He re-raised $5 more. I felt I was pot committed so I called. Yep again he had a boat.

Here is the hand I regret, but would do the same again. Most of the players at this site are like me, solid and cautious players. We all occasionally make our bluffs at the pot. This one particular day there was this guy to my left. He was chatting some smack, which in itself is unusual for this site. Very little chat and usually it is in German or some other language. Sure it supposed to be English only, but I really do not mind. I was dealt 3 jacks. I raised to $1.25 prior to getting cards. The mouth next to me calls. I draw 2 cards and they were blanks. He stands pat. I checked to see what his move was. He raised $6.00. I folded only to see him show his cards A2347. I knew in my soul that he was bluffing, but I did not figure the earning potential was worth the risk. I sure wish I would have called his bluff. Oh well! I am going to remain conservative and continue to protect and grow my bankroll.

I was down all the way to $30 at this site and now I am still hovering around $100. I only play this site on the kids PC, so I am not playing as often as I like.

I missed coaching the Yellow jackets first soccer game and our son also missed the game. I am looking forward to coaching these great kids. This season we have 3 boys and 3 girls. Now our daughters team is a different story. I got a phone call from the league commissioner, assuming he wanted me to coach. I called him back the very next day. He never returned my call. I called him again and was told he was out of town. In the mean time he calls my friend Mr. A. and asks him to coach. No problem with me. Two days before the first scheduled game we did not have a roster. Turns out we only had 4 girls on the team, which is just enough to field a team. Sure 8 year old girls could play for 48 minutes straight. Coach A had the wisdom to reschedule game 1, but then the idiots scheduled a second game for the first weekend. Coach A got that rescheduled and come to find out we are down to 3 girls. Total disorganization and I would be happy at this point to get our money back and invest it in some other activity.

Right now I am sitting on a nice park picnic table typing this little blurb. Our son is having a blast as usual.

I wanted to chime in real quick on the new reality TV show, The Contender. Yes I am a reality junky! Fear Factor, Amazing Race, and Survivor are can’t miss shows. Any rate I enjoyed the contender. They really have some legit fighters. I was really shocked by the first match and really thought Gomez was going to get hammered. Good thing I do not bet on boxing!! The show had bad ratings, but I taped American Idol and watched it live. I will watch it again.

We are supposed to head to Houston in a couple weekends. I hope I am fully recovered by then and things are stable at the office. Hopefully, we can celebrate my Mom’s birthday. Happy ‘early” Birthday Mom!

I can’t not think of anything else to comment on, so continue to play smart and invest wisely. Hopefully in the near future I will catch a bluffer red handed and rake the pot.

Play on!